Archive for the ‘Vocabulary’ Category

In this article, I would like to discuss the vital difference between 没[mei2] and 不[bu4] when both of them are used to make a question sentence.

In Chinese language, apart from 吗 (ma), the other way to make a question sentence is to use the positive form of a word plus the negative form of the word. For instance, 你忙不忙？[ni3 mang2 bu4 mang2] (are you busy?) In this sentence the positive form is 忙 and the negative form is 不忙。 More examples can be: 你好不好？(ni3 hao3 bu4 hao3] (how are you?) 你看没看书？[ni3 kan4 mei2 kan4 shu1] (Have you read the book?/did you read the book?).

The difference between 不 and 没 is fundamentally semantic one. Both 不 and 没 can be used to negate an action ( or a verb, structurally speaking), but 不 is used to talk about you own intention, whereas 没 is used to negate a past fact.

EX:你吃没吃饭? Have you eaten (or not)?

EX:你吃不吃饭？Do you want to eat or not/Are you going to eat or not?

In most statements, 不 is usually used to describe the change of the state of something. However, 没 is usually to describe a negative fact.

EX:车不走了 (the car is not going anymore) in this sentence, it indicates the car was going/working but now it is not going/working anymore.

EX:车没走 (the car hasn’t gone) in this sentence, in indicates that the car is still here.

Today kicks off a new feature for us at MJChinese – a section of our site devoted to providing clarification on vocabulary use in Chinese, called “Nasty nuances!”

This feature will present bite-sized blog posts designed to demonstrate the different features, functions and subtle intricacies of words which translate similarly from Chinese -> English.

Our first stop is differentiating between 贷款 (dai4kuan3 – to get a loan) and 借债 (jie4zhai4 – to borrow money).

First, a great quote relating to all things monetary:

“Borrow money from a pessimist – they don’t expect it back”—Janeane Garofalo

OK, now onto the serious stuff. This time, our respective English translations “to get a loan” and “to borrow money”(fortunately) do contain some clues as to when each should be used.

“To get a loan” does sound rather official, and sure enough, we use 贷款 when we trudge to our local bank branch or credit institution for a loan.

我同学要向银行贷款. (My classmate had to ask the bank for a loan)

In English, “to borrow money” can be used in both informal and formal contexts. You can borrow money from a friend, a bank or a loanshark. In Chinese, 借债 is usually employed in an informal sense, when you borrow money from a friend or close acquaintance. On a more interesting note, 借债 can also be used for a loan from seedy underword figures, such as loansharks!

For instance, 明天早上我会向他借债 (Tomorrow, I will borrow some money from him)

It’s important to note that when constructing sentences when you are approaching somebody to request something, 向 (xiang4) is used. This is a preposition which means “toward”. If we deconstruct the use of 向 in the above sentence by interpreting the example sentence literally, we get:

Tomorrow morning I will toward him to borrow money.

This does make some sense! After all we need to approach the creditor(whether they be friend, financial institution or a more unscrupulous individual) in order to obtain a loan, so think of 向 in that sense, thereby making our literal translation somewhat more refined:

Tomorrow morning I will approach him to borrow money.

As such, remember that the preposition must follow the basic Chinese grammar structure, whereby 向 comes before the “target” of the request, which is then followed by the verb.

Now, for my mind, this small article’s effectiveness is let down by a crippling problem: a limited vocabulary. In English, I can talk endlessly about the differences between Chinese and Western manners.

Here, however, I can only string together a few sentences about the use of chopsticks vs the knife and fork. It absolutely kills me that I can’t fully express myself in my second language.

I know this is the same for many second-language learners. It seems that no matter how many expressions we learn per week, a new word (whether it will be slang or not) crops up. Or, more annoyingly, we can’t find the right word in our second language, but could easily use its equivalent in our mother tongue.

Rather than mope for too long about it, I’ve come up with a small action plan for the next semester of Chinese language study.

On top of my in-class 生词 (new words), I’ll be adding a further 10 words to my vocabulary per night. That will give me an extra 840 words by the end of the semester, and hopefully enough to discuss more interesting cultural differences between China and Australia.